I wasn’t much of a fan when this show first began. Of course, every woman I knew at that time (I was 22) watched the show religiously while every other guy I knew avoided it like the plague. Well, I have finally watched it from start to finish and I can tell you that the girls were right. But Sex and the City was hardly at its creative peak in the first season. It didn’t reach maturity until it started liberating itself more and more from the source material.

That would be Candace Bushnell’s book that was first published in 1997, a compilation of the columns she wrote for the New York Observer during the 1990s. It was a portrayal of sex in the Big Apple from a woman’s perspective, and Ms. Bushnell had created an alter ego, Carrie Bradshaw, who also worked as a columnist writing about sex for a magazine. The TV show took three additional characters from the columns and gave them much more space. They became Carrie’s best friends in the city and the quartet would spend a lot of time in diners the day after a big night out, dishing the dirt on the people they had hooked up with. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) used her own and her friends’ experiences for the column. Charlotte York (Kristin Davis) was essentially a prude, a good, sophisticated, Protestant girl looking for the right, sophisticated, Protestant man to marry and have children with. Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) was an attorney who wouldn’t give up everything for a man and always relied on common sense… even cynicism, one might say. Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) was an ad executive who had long since come to the conclusion that no one had the right to question her passionate quest for the greatest fuck ever; her search for men was indefatigable and she was more than happy to share her experiences with the girls the next day. Of course, these four women didn’t have much in common and one had to wonder how their friendship could last, but I guess they completed each other on several levels. At the time, it was rare to see a show about intelligent, likeable women having one-night stands and not be labeled.

In the early episodes, Carrie would do annoying things like talking into the camera, and the show had her interviewing people on the topic of sex. This was quickly dropped in favor of straight storylines starring the four main characters and their flings… and subsequently more or less serious relationships. Because what made this show improve with time was the dramatic content, as well as the excellent performances of the four stars. Sure, there was always plenty of humor for our amusement, and interesting lessons to be learned from the sexual escapades, but what made us truly connect with these women was their friendship and the emotional experiences they had with men. Carrie’s true love turned out to be an unreliable, but charming businessman whose real name we never learned, but who was referred to as Big (Chris Noth). Miranda eventually had a child with a man she never thought she’d fall in love with… but she did to the degree that she moved with him to Brooklyn. Charlotte found the perfect man in a sloppy, Jewish lawyer, and even Samantha found love at last, with a young actor she had initially only thought of as a kid one fucks and then leaves. Funny how things turn out.

What gave this show its pizzazz was the sex and the observations about men. But it was interesting to see a TV adaptation of a novel get a life of its own and, deservedly, surpass that book in people’s minds.

The YouTube clip shows Charlotte being… food poisoned.

Sex and the City 1998-2004:U.S. Made for TV. 94 episodes. Color. Created by Darren Star. Theme: Douglas J. Cuomo. Cast: Sarah Jessica Parker (Carrie Bradshaw), Kim Cattrall (Samantha Jones), Kristin Davis (Charlotte York), Cynthia Nixon (Miranda Hobbes), Chris Noth.

Trivia: Followed by a feature film, Sex and the City (2008).

Emmys: Outstanding Comedy Series 00-01; Directing 01-02; Actress (Parker) 03-04; Supporting Actress (Nixon) 03-04. Golden Globes: Best Comedy Series 00, 01, 02; Actress (Parker) 00, 01, 02, 04; Supporting Actress (Cattrall) 03.

Quote: “I don’t think she’s a lesbian. I think she just ran out of men.” (Ms. Davis on learning that Ms. Cattrall is suddenly sleeping with women)

Above Average

Andra bloggar om: tv

Published 2007-06-28 07:36